Page 33 of To Catch a Husband
‘Though I am now not sure I ought to have said that to you,’ she paused while peeling an apple, ‘for you know how it is when you know that you must not say something, dearest. It is always the thing uppermost in one’s mind. Remember when your papa was most insistent that I should not tell anyone that he had sold my best jewellery and replaced it with paste and—’
‘He what?’ Mary gaped at her mother.184
‘Oh dear, of course you do not, because you were too young. See how things get out?’
‘Your jewels are paste? The family jewels?’
‘Well, I do not go anywhere grand enough to worry and everyone hereabouts has long forgotten, since it was ooh, fifteen years or so ago. Your Aunt Clarissa had just had her first nasty turn, when she found out about Hubert and that … female. You would have thought your uncle beyond all that sort of thing and no wonder he suffered with his back thereafter. Served him right in my opinion. But … where was I? Oh yes. You have the things your grandpapa left you, the things that belonged purely to your grandmama, and of course they are all still real. One should not,’ added Lady Damerham virtuously, but with a tinge of regret, ‘put too great a store on worldly goods. There now, it was that which made me reveal the details of my jewellery in the first place. It was all the vicar’s fault for preaching about that the Sunday afterwards. I happened to just mention how it made me feel better, to Seraphina Calke, and whoosh, everyone knew as if the birds sang it from the treetops, though of course most songbirds sing from the middle of the trees, except that blackbird that was on top of the holly by my window all last spring and woke me at the most unearthly hours.’
Mary was left reeling by her mother’s artless revelations, having as little knowledge of her uncle’s indiscretions as she did of the substitution of fake for real in her mama’s jewel case. For a while it ousted even185her thoughts upon the morning, but then they crowded back upon her, not least because she looked back at her parents’ marriage, which had been merely an acceptance of each other for many years, and thought, even upon a short acquaintance, that Sir Rowland did not look the sort of man who would betray his wedding vows, nor bring about near ruin upon his estate and family. Even without any other advantages, marriage to him would have to be infinitely more fulfilling than the one relationship with which she had had most contact. Mama had never talked of her own courtship, but Mary was almost certain that she had gone along with whatever had been suggested to her as a sensible course of action, and Papa, in his youth, had at least been quite good-looking, until good living had got the better of him. That was another thing. Sir Rowland did not have the look of a man who drank to excess. At this point Mary sighed. Dwelling upon his less than bad points was ridiculous if he was going to make a cake of himself like every other man over Madeleine Banham.
She tried to recall what exactly had passed between them all. Sir Rowland had definitely been dazzled by Madeleine’s beauty, but then so was every man. She knew he had not taken to Lord Cradley upon introduction, but even in her own anger she had felt his hackles rise when the man had made a pointed comparison between his own good fortune in escorting Miss Banham and Sir Rowland’s misfortune in having herself as a riding companion. His calm response was a veneer over his186annoyance, and the fact that there was an irrefutable truth in what his opponent had said. What was telling was that he had said she was ‘educating’ him, which showed just how deep the impression of the governess had gone. His response about trying to ‘attain good marks’ had been clever, but no more, though there had been a touch of anger in his voice. He had also been as eager as she was to end the conversation, presumably since there was no way in which he might emerge the victor from the encounter.
‘So now I have not only introduced him to the local beauty but been the cause of him being bested by a man he has taken in dislike. Is it even worth me bothering to try and impress him?’
From deep within the answer came in the affirmative, not because there was any great hope, but because she was drawn to him, and when he was with her she felt different. It was as though he lit a spark within her, a spark she had never before encountered, and which confused her. How awful it would be, she thought, if she was developing a realtendrefor him even as he set out to court Madeleine Banham. It was bad enough that it would crush her practical aspiration to reclaim her home. She must keep her personal feelings under control and tomorrow she must show him that not only Madeleine could make sheep’s eyes at men. She was not a girl to refuse a challenge.187
The weather was even brighter the following morning, and Sir Rowland made his appearance in a patently good mood.
‘I trust we will not meet with any distraction this morning, Miss Lound,’ he declared, cheerily.
‘Indeed, Sir Rowland. We have a larger area to cover, though a similar number of tenantry.’
Trust her to see the practical side, he thought.
‘I was thinking it would be pleasant not to be interrupted. I very much enjoyed our morning together.’ He did not think he could say more but wanted to reassure her.
‘I am sure that it was most … instructive.’ She coloured.
‘It was, ma’am, but forgive me, you must not think that I look upon you purely in the light of preceptress. That is to demean yourself. Learning is not always a matter of teacher and pupil. If we learn nothing day by day we are ignorant. I have already learnt so very much from you and your generosity in imparting knowledge of Tapley End’s history, of fishing, and of this estate.’
‘You need not be effusive in your gratitude, Sir Rowland. I would not curtail today’s circuit, even were we to encounter Lord Cradley again, though I would feel it a misfortune.’
‘Any encounter with him is such, but I am not being “effusive”. I am being honest. Do you find it so hard to even believe that someone may thank you and mean it?’ He frowned.188
She turned her head and looked at him, giving a twisted smile, but made no response. When she spoke next it was to tell him about the first tenant they were to meet, and her manner was friendly but with some reserve. He did not force the issue, since the previous day she had become more natural as they had progressed about the estate. Today it was not quite the same, and several times between the encounters she attempted the lowered lashes look and spoke in a purring manner that jarred. Yet he did not recoil from it as before, for he had not only seen what she was attempting to emulate, but understood her reasoning. So he smiled, not because he was taken in, but because her very awkwardness and ineptitude spoke well of her nature. Other than during these unnatural moments, she relaxed, and there was between them a pleasant camaraderie, which Mary attributed to him thinking of her in the same way as did Harry Penwood. Several times she took him on shortcuts across fields of burnt stubble that awaited the plough, and they cantered side by side, with Silas on the cob to their rear. She was, he thought, a very natural horsewoman, with good hands and an affinity with her mount. If the previous day he had mostly encouraged her to talk and then listened, today he prompted with far more questions, not all about the estate and tenants.
He asked her about the local hunt, and then mentally cursed himself, for he recalled that she had said she had hunted before her hunters were sold off.
Her response was honest, but held a touch of regret,189and it was obvious that she missed the activity.
‘I ride as often as I can, but hacking about the locality on one’s own gives the pleasure of the outdoors but not the excitement of galloping over the fields and jumping ditch and gate. I do not take Silas with me usually, for this is my … was my land and everyone knows me. It would be foolish to take fences, not only because if one were to take a tumble none would know where one lay, but because old Hector here is not up to it.’ She patted the horse’s neck. ‘However, at least I still have him, which is a great blessing, and he is a dear old friend. It was heartbreaking to lose Orion and Molly, but I could not have borne it to lose Hector here, whom I have had since I was fifteen.’
He wondered, for a moment, what she had been like at fifteen, on the cusp of womanhood. He imagined her as a youthful Diana, trammelled by her skirts and the increasingly important aspect of deportment and being ‘ladylike’.
‘You make it sound aeons ago, Miss Lound.’ He smiled.
‘It sometimes feels it, Sir Rowland, though it is but a decade. We have a tendency to look back upon the past in some rosy glow. It was not an idyll, of course it was not, for there were pressures and problems that looked large to an adolescent and now seem minor, but it felt impossible that life would change as it has, that there would be so much loss.’
‘I fear I have done it again, ma’am, dragged up190memories you would prefer to keep locked away.’
‘You cannot refrain from broaching topics with me, sir, in case they might lead to sad memories. My brother James said … said when he went to Portugal … that life was to be lived, not tallied in years. It was what you put into it and got from it that counted.’ She paused for a moment, gave Sir Rowland a tremulous smile, and then said, ‘It was a very philosophical thing to say, and James was not a philosophical person. I have often wondered since … but …’ She shook her head. ‘One has to face what is, and do the best one can. I doubt not that Sir Robert and the Lady Elizabeth must have had times of great misery when in exile, perhaps struggling to make ends meet in a foreign land, and unsure as to whether they would ever see England, let alone the family estate, ever again. If I feel weak and low, I consider them.’
‘You seem to have an affinity with them, considering they lived a century and a half ago.’
‘I suppose it is because my grandfather spoke of them so warmly. He never knew them, of course, but his own father was very proud of what his parents had achieved, more so than his own elevation, and I used to go and look up at Sir Robert.’
‘Look up “at” him?’ Sir Rowland looked puzzled.
